


God Knows What Is Hiding In Those Weak And Sunken Eyes

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:17:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ned stopped just inside the doors, looking down into Sansa's face again. He touched the pale lavender of her eyelid, heart aching for this perfect creature and all that would be denied her if the maesters were right.</p><p>"She is our daughter," Ned said firmly after a moment, looking up to meet Catelyn's worried gaze. "And her being able to see or not does not change that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Winterfell

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a long time in the planning, and I don't actually remember what originally prompted it? But it has changed beyond recognition from what was originally planned and teased on tumblr, and while I know precisely where it's going to go, others don't. 
> 
> So. Hopefully, you will enjoy. AU in that Sansa was born blind, and a few other things that will show up as we continue along.
> 
> Title taken from the song "People Help The People" by Birdy.

The sky was clear, pale blue and sharp with the low-slanting sun, when the litter bearing Ned's wife and children arrived at Winterfell. It was a cold morning, but not unbearably so, and he hoped that neither of the children would fall ill. They were so young, so small...

_Twins,_ he thought, amazed. _A boy and a girl. Robb and Sansa._

Catelyn was wrapped up in furs and scarves when she stepped down into the courtyard, but even so she looked cold, her cheeks and the tip of her nose pink. She was balancing somehow without her hands, because there was a bundle tucked into each of her elbows. _Two children._

"My lord," she said, and there was a flash of uncertainty in her eyes when Ned moved to push away the layers of swaddling so he could see the faces of these children who shared his blood – did she wish that it had been Brandon welcoming her to Winterfell, having fathered her children? "You are well?"

"The better for having you all safely home," he told her honestly, looking down into the two matching faces in something that feels like shock, but warm and soft under his breastbone. Their eyes were closed, but they had the same shape cheekbones under their baby fat, the same noses, the same bright red curls poking down over their foreheads.

"My lord, there is- there is something you must know," Catelyn said, her voice almost faltering. "About Sansa, my lord."

"My lady?" Ned asked, carefully taking the smaller bundle - Sansa, he told himself, his daughter, and he thought he might burst with pride to hold her in his arms even as he forced back a shudder of terror at being responsible for something so small and lovely – and turning to guide Catelyn inside.

"The maesters think - they think she is blind, my lord," Catelyn said helplessly, sounding terrified. Was that why she had been so anxious when he greeted her? Was that why her letters had been so stilted, even when he had tried to make his own as warm as he could?

Ned stopped just inside the doors, looking down into Sansa's face again. He touched the pale lavender of her eyelid, heart aching for this perfect creature and all that would be denied her if the maesters were right.

"She is our daughter," Ned said firmly after a moment, looking up to meet Catelyn's worried gaze. "And her being able to see or not does not change that."

The warmth in his wife's eyes lasted until he guided her towards the nursery, only to walk into Wylla walking Jon up and down the hall to quiet him.

 

* * *

 

Catelyn did not like Jon Snow, not because he was a dislikeable boy but because of everything he represented, everything she feared Ned resented having to give up because he was forced to wed her. That did not mean that she would ever pretend to like him, just because her husband had seen fit to insult her by raising his bastard under their roof, of course, but neither did it mean that she would be cruel – he was a quiet boy, like a shadow trailing in Robb's steps, and easy to ignore, generally.

She may not have liked him, but she could never hate him because of how he was with Sansa.

Both boys were remarkably gentle with their sister, and utterly accepting of her limits – they understood without needing to be told that there were some games that Sansa would never be able to play, that there were some things with which she needed help, and there had never been so much as a murmur of complaint from either of them. 

Jon, though, was far more patient that Robb – he was like Ned in more than looks – and often walked Sansa from her room to the great hall and to their lessons with the maester, holding her hand and ignoring the way the servants children and the younger maids teased him for it. How could she possibly have hated someone who so clearly loved both of her children?

She thought of this often, but never more than when she watched the twins and Jon playing in the yard. One day, when Sansa was following the sound of the boys’ voices and giggling when they stopped to let her catch them, she did not see a stone on the ground in her path and tripped, grazing her palms and cutting her knee through her soft gown – there was little point in worrying about Sansa's clothes being pretty, as far as Sansa herself was concerned, only that they were soft and warm. 

Catelyn was already moving towards the stairs when Robb bolted for Maester Luwin, but she saw the way Jon crouched down on his hunkers at Sansa’s side, the way he stroked her hair back from her face with careful, clumsy hands as she began to cry, big, round tears spilling down her cheeks from sightless eyes the same blue as Cat’s own, as Robb’s.

Jon pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, a clean one, by some miracle, and wrapped it around the hand Sansa held out to him just as Cat approached, and then he patted her hair and told her that even if her knee scarred it will make her look fierce and strong – something that made Ned laugh later, when Cat told him about the incident, because even with her only a babe in arms, it was clear that _Arya_ would be the more ferocious of their daughters.

Jon looked up at Cat when she reached them, eyes wide and so like Ned’s, and Cat forced a smile. It was easier to be kind to him, when he was with Sansa.

“Thank you,” she said, bending down and gently helping Sansa to her feet. “I will take care of her now.”

Jon and Robb spent the rest of the day sitting on the end of Sansa's bed – her knee was not badly hurt, but she had taken a fright when she fell and Maester Luwin had suggested some rest to sooth her nerves – and telling her wild stories, singing songs in rough little-boy voices, and begging that Arya be allowed to join them, even though she could barely sit up alone quite yet and was more likely to scream than add anything to their fun.

 

* * *

 

Sansa was ten when she first heard that someone had asked for her hand.

She had thought, because of maids' whispers overheard when Robb left her to listen for adults coming when he wanted to sneak lemoncakes from the kitchens, that she would never wed – it had been clear from the things the servants said that no man would want a blind wife, even if she looked like Sansa's mother. 

Sansa could not see, but she knew that her mother had to be the most beautiful woman in Westeros because she was the _best_ woman in Westeros.

But, not long after Sansa and Robb's tenth nameday, she heard that Lord Karstark had inquired after her hand for his youngest son, Harrion. She knew that she ought not to have heard it at all, because she had been intending on knocking on Mother's door to ask if she might sleep with her that night because she had had a nightmare, but she had overheard Mother and Father arguing, and had lingered when she heard her own name mentioned.

She had run to Robb's room straight afterward – Robb never minded her climbing in beside him, even if Mother and Father had said that it was not appropriate anymore, and Father had used his formal voice – and told him everything, and he'd told her not to worry, that Mother and Father would never marry her off to some smelly third son, because she was worth far too much for that.

But then there had come more offers, all of them the same. Mother and Father started telling her about them, third and fourth sons, men years and years older than her, widowers with children older than she was herself, men with terrible reputations and men who were said to have a dozen bastards in every town they passed through.

Sansa began to doubt Robb's words – if it was only smelly third sons and even worse men who wanted to marry her, was she really worth more than that? It wasn't her fault that she could not see, wasn't anyone's fault, but nobody who was worthy of her seemed to want her, and that upset her more even than when Theon teased her.

 

* * *

 

Jon wondered how Sansa understood the world, sometimes, because it seemed to him as if so much relied on appearances.

“What's that noise?” she asked, when she appeared in the kitchens with Bran holding onto her hand. “Why are there puppies in the kitchen? Robb, Mother will be angry-”

“She told us we could keep them here,” Robb promised, but Jon could see that Sansa was doubtful. “They're not normal pups, Sansa, they're _direwolf_ pups! We found them by the road!”

“Direwolves south of the Wall?” she said doubtfully, feeling along the wall until Robb reached up and took her hand to guide her down to the floor. “But I thought that there _were_ no direwolves this side of the Wall.”

“Well, we found them,” Robb laughed, and Jon gently steered Rickon away from Sansa before he could bump into her and knock her down. “One for each of us, even for Jon.”

“One for me?” Sansa asked, sounding surprised, and Jon wondered if Robb would ever understand that he was the only one of them who found everything so easy – nobody paid Jon or Sansa any attention because they were effectively useless, bastard and blind as they were, and poor Bran and Rickon were only the spares, really, extra sons in case something happened Robb in the eyes of many no matter how their lord father and Lady Stark loved them. As for Arya, well, it sometimes seemed as though Arya would never find her place in the world, that she would never fit in at all.

“A bitch,” Arya said cheerfully, carefully guiding Sansa's arms up into a cradle so Bran could deposit the second female pup into her hold. She was the smallest of the pups, smaller even than Jon's runt, and the prettiest, too, a soft smoke-grey with wide golden eyes – and apparently a rose-pink tongue, as they all could see when she licked the corner of Sansa's jaw.

To everyone's amazement, Sansa squealed in delight and hugged the pup close.

“I shall call her Lady,” she said brightly, rubbing her cheek against the back of the pup's head. “That was a true lady's kiss, wasn't it?”

 

* * *

 

Robb knew how excited Sansa was when Father announced that the King and his court would be visiting Winterfell – it was like something from one of her favourite songs – but he worried that mayhaps it would be nothing at all like she hoped. 

He worried that mayhaps Sansa was hoping to find a husband among the visitors, because he knew that Sansa wished to marry, wished to find happiness such as Mother had with Father, and he worried that the southerners would scorn her in a way even crueller than the Northern lords who had so insulted her with the marriage proposals she had received thus far had.

He held her hand as the King rode through the gates, and kept a hand behind her back when they dropped to their knees – he worried that, without being able to see, she might overbalance, but Sansa had been graceful from the moment she had pulled herself to her feet by Mother's skirts, that was what Mother and Father always said – and helped her back up, smiling even though she could not see it when she smiled herself in thanks.

The King, though. 

The King completely ignored Sansa as he moved along the line to greet each of them in turn, choosing instead to linger with Arya and look at her with such disgusting interest that Robb was unsurprised to feel Jon's hand grasping the back of his cloak. Jon was always the more cautious of them, had always been, and he knew better than anyone save Sansa how to calm Robb's temper.

Sansa did not react to the insult, but Robb could see it in the faces of all their family that everyone else had noticed it – and he could see it in the Queen's face, when she stepped from the wheelhouse and finished glaring about her as though someone had dealt _her_ an insult. She had seemed amused by the King's rudeness, and turned up her nose at both Sansa and Arya. 

Robb knew even from then that he would not enjoy court being at Winterfell as much as he had hoped.

 

* * *

 

Sansa was wandering along the corridors before the feast, holding onto Lady's ruff, when she overheard the Queen's voice – she had a very singular voice, the Queen, sharp and high and strident, a voice that did not bear being ignored any more than the Queen herself would. Robb had said that the Queen was very beautiful, but Arya had said that she looked as if something smelled bad.

“Quite the brood,” the Queen laughed, and whatever man was in her room with her laughed as well. “A bastard, a blind ruin, a wild brat. At least Lady Stark's sons are strong and handsome – the gods truly blessed them when they spared those boys that long face of their father's.”

Sansa could hardly believe her ears – this was not the way a queen ought to speak, particularly not of her hosts! - but waited regardless, unable to tear herself away despite knowing that she should.

Lady sat quietly at her feet, warm against her legs even through her heavy skirts.

“They're well enough behaved for having grown up in the wilderness,” drawled a male voice that Sansa didn't recognise – it sounded somewhat like the Queen, though, both the accent and the intonation. Could it be her twin, the Kingslayer? And what did he mean, _wilderness?_ Cold didn't make a place a wilderness, did it? 

Sansa thought about this – Maester Luwin had taught her that different plants and animals were found in different places, but he'd never mentioned that the North was a wilderness. Mayhaps it was a subjective thing.

“Who would ever have supposed that Ned Stark had it in him to father _six_ children, though?” the male voice laughed, and Sansa drew back her shoulders indignantly – how dare these people speak so ill of their hosts? Of her family? She had ignored the insult to herself, she was well used to doing so because she of all the family was the easiest to insult, after all, but she could not bear to hear her father spoken so ill of.

She tore away, running straight to Mother's rooms. Mother would know if there was anything that could be done to the Queen and her brother for their rudeness.

 

* * *

 

Robb had wanted to escort Sansa into the feast, Jon knew, but their father had refused – it made sense, of a sort, that Robb escort the princess and the elder prince escort Sansa, but Jon knew why Robb had been so reluctant. The prince was rude and boorish, and made poor japes at Sansa's expense the whole way to the high table, japes that left tears brimming in Sansa's bright eyes.

Arya was with the fat little prince, and seemed as unimpressed with him as with his brother, albeit for different reasons. 

The prince kept up the nasty japes all the way through the feast – Jon could hear them, even from his place far down the hall, and he could see the way Robb's jaw clenched and Lady Stark's cheeks flushed red in indignation.

And then, Father-

“I would be thankful, Your Grace, if you restrained your son.”

The King guffawed, saying “He's only a lad, just high spirits-”

But Father-

“If you do not make him apologise for his treatment of my daughter, Your Grace, I will.”

The hall fell silent, but then the King cuffed the prince over the back of the head and grunted at him to apologise to the _girl._

He hadn't called Arya a _girl._ She was a lady, a young woman, and Jon knew that everyone had noticed that, just as all of Winterfell made a point of not mentioning how like their aunt Lyanna Arya was.

The noise and bustle resumed, but Sansa asked to be excused soon after – her cheeks were bright red with embarrassment, her eyes near to overflowing with tears, but because Robb had no choice but to remain, it fell to Rickon, already half asleep, to call for their wolves, and Sansa left the hall with her head bowed and dozens of southerners mocking her as she passed.

Jon himself left almost immediately, sickened by the cruelty directed towards his sister, who was only ever sweet, by his own wounded pride at being seated so far from his brothers and sisters, and by all he had drank to... He was not certain why he had drank so much, but he had an idea that Sansa would not appreciate his company in such a state.

 

* * *

 

Sansa sang to Rickon until he started to snore, and then she had Lady guide her back to her own bedchamber. Once there, she locked and barred and bolted the door, changed into her nightclothes – her maid always left them on the bed for her – and burrowed under the covers so she might cry without being overheard. 

Sansa had never read a book, had never been able to, but Robb and Jon and Father and Mother and Bran and sometimes even Arya had read plenty of them to her, and she knew a great many songs and poems and was quite good at singing and reciting them.

Princes, Sansa thought, should not act as Joffrey Baratheon had.

It was a long time later that Robb knocked on her door, asking if he might come in, but she held her breath and waited until he sighed and went away before throwing back the bedding.

No, no prince ought behave as Joffrey had. Sansa pitied whatever poor woman had to marry him and be his queen.

 

* * *

 

“It's only because I look like Father's sister,” Arya said furiously. “I don't _want_ to marry the horrible prince and be queen, I'd rather die!”

“Arya!” Robb snapped, clapping a hand over her mouth. “Watch your tongue!”

Sansa was playing her little harp, an uneven melody that she often played when she was upset, and Robb wondered at that – was she upset that Arya was marrying someone so terrible? 

“Well, I _would,”_ Arya insisted, slapping his hand away and scowling. “I'll run away to the Free Cities and become a courtesan if Mother and Father make me marry him-”

“At least _someone_ wants to marry you,” Sansa whispered, and then she threw her harp down so hard the wood cracked. “At least someone who isn't old or ugly or cruel or, or fat or stupid, or lowborn, or from a House of no consequence, or- at least _someone_ wants to marry you!”

Arya looked contrite immediately, scooping up Sansa's harp and moving to sit beside her.

“I'm sorry, Sansa,” she said, awkwardly patting Sansa's hair back. “I didn't mean to upset you.”

Sansa leaned her head on Arya's shoulder and sniffled, tears falling down her face.

“It's not your fault,” Sansa said. “I just sometimes wonder how... How different things might be, if I weren't ruined.”

“You're not _ruined,_ ” Bran said firmly, startling them all as he swung in the window. “Anyone who thinks you are is stupid and doesn't deserve you anyways.”

 

* * *

 

On the day that court was due to leave Winterfell, Robb found Sansa sitting in the godswood with Bran. Jon was leaving as well, to go north to the Wall with Benjen, and Sansa was not taking being left here alone well.

“... and Mother and Robb will be busy keeping Winterfell, and you _know_ Rickon doesn't like spending time with me, because I can't play with him properly. What use am I to anyone, Bran?”

Bran and Sansa had always been close – they were very alike, in unexpected sorts of ways – but Robb was still hurt that Sansa chose to share these worries with Bran instead of with him. He was her _twin,_ after all, and her best friend besides, he'd thought.

“Mother needs you here,” Bran pointed out. “She will be lonely without Father, Sansa, and she will need your company.”

Robb made his presence known then, crossing over to sit on Sansa's other side.

“Am I such terrible company as this, to inspire such horror in you, sister?” he teased gently, and Sansa shook her head. “Sansa, I know that you hoped that things might be different with court here, but... Mayhaps it is for the best that they were not, do you think?”

Sansa turned her face toward him, mouth tight with fury and cheeks flushed, and then she stood and sank her fingers into Lady's ruff and took off towards the heart tree, skirts swishing through the snow.

It was not until the crowds cleared from the yard that Robb realised that Sansa was not with Mother, or with Rickon, or with Maester Luwin or her septa.

 

* * *

 

Sansa was weeping quietly when Cat found her, curled around Lady and hiding her face in the wolf's ruff. There was snow gathered on her shoulders and in her hair, and Cat's heart ached for her sweet girl, denied so much because of something none of them could control.

“Come here, sweetling,” she said softly, gathering Sansa close and guiding her inside – it must have looked odd, Cat thought ruefully, for Sansa was taller than her already, slightly taller than Robb even though he would never admit that, but Cat didn't care at all. 

“Why did the gods curse me, Mother?” Sansa whispered, and Cat had to stop to hold her tight as she wept, her wolf whining softly and butting against their legs all the while.


	2. Wedlock

War came on the heels of Father's death – the Northern strength had gathered at Moat Cailan, as a threat that should have ensured his safe return, even if it was to the Wall he went. At least he would have been _alive,_ Robb thought, forcing back the fury that had so frightened Sansa and Mother when word had come of Father's fate.

His armies – Robb's armies, now – were awaiting Robb's arrival from Winterfell, and the order to march south. It was an order Robb had hoped would be unnecessary, but that had been a futile hope.

_Funerals come in threes,_ Robb had always been told, and it was as true now as it had ever been – first King Robert, gored by a boar while hunting, then his brother, Lord Stannis, found dead in his bed of poison that could only have been Lannister in origin, and then, at last, Father, murdered by the boy king who thought himself above them all.

Word had come from Storm's End, though, word of the reason for Joffrey Baratheon's evil – word that he was no true Baratheon, but a Lannister twice over, son of a Queen and a Kingslayer.

People had looked strangely at Robb and Sansa once that had gotten about, simply because they were twins, but Robb didn't care – he knew the idea of lying together sickened Sansa as much as it did him, after all – except that people were believing it of the Lannisters, that they might support an alliance with King Robert's youngest brother, the Lord of Storm's End, who was his rightful heir.

Who was promising vengeance for Father's murder.

Amidst all that, though, was a worry that had left Mother without sleep for days and days – there had been ravens from King's Landing, denouncing Father as a traitor and demanding that Robb come to the capital immediately to swear fealty to his new lord and sovereign, but there had never once been even a whisper of Bran or of Arya. Sansa was beside herself as well, although she remained remarkably composed in public, standing with Robb when Mother was occupied with Rickon or with some matter Maester Luwin drew to her attention.

None of them grieved. There was no time for that, not now, not when the Lannister threat was so very real, not when Bran and Arya were, to the best of their knowledge, either missing or dead. 

“We treat with Lord Renly,” Mother said, her tone brooking no argument whatever. “He is our best chance of safety – my father will ally with us, and I am certain that I can convince my sister to bring the armies of the Vale to our side as well.”

 

* * *

 

Sansa had taken to spending her evenings telling stories to Rickon, who disliked there being so many strangers about Winterfell, and who would not settle for Mother at night. He was near too big for her to carry now, but he seemed most at ease in Mother's solar, and so it was there that Sansa sat with him, Shaggydog to one side and Lady to the other, and told him tales and sang him her favourite songs until he leaned warm and heavy into her arms. Then she carried him to bed, supporting him with one arm and keeping her free hand wound tightly into Lady's ruff, and sang to him until he fell asleep.

She never missed Bran and Arya and Jon quite as keenly as she did on those nights – Rickon had always found her boring, she knew, because she could not play with him, but Bran and Arya both had always loved telling stories with her, and listening to Old Nan's stories, too.

Sansa wondered if she was to live out her days like Old Nan, nursemaid and storyteller to Robb's children and their children and on and on until she passed away in her sleep. The idea made her feel very small and lonely, and then very sad because it was, unless she settled for a husband that no Stark of Winterfell should ever have had to take, very likely.

Once Rickon was settled, she made her way back to Mother's solar – Mother was almost always there when she retured, and most nights she brushed out Sansa's hair. Sansa wondered if Mother knew that Sansa could hear her crying quietly, and that she could hear the way Mother's voice was thick when she bid Sansa good-night, and that made her sad too – both that Mother felt the need to hide her tears and her grief, and that Mother forgot that just because Sansa could not see did not mean that she could not hear.

Father being gone – being _dead_ – still did not make sense to Sansa. She could not imagine a world without her father in it, a world without his slow laugh and his gentle voice, which could turn hard in a moment if someone was disrespectful to her or Mother or Arya. It did not seem right, seem _just,_ that he should be dead when the terrible prince lived on, when the awful prince had become _king._

Robb wanted vengeance, Sansa knew, and Mother did as well, but she thought that mayhaps Father would not have wanted that, that he would have wanted justice. He had always believed so strongly in justice, after all, and in honour, and it seemed better that they honour him by bringing his murderer to justice.

It never occured to Sansa that her father was guilty – Ned Stark had been the best man she had ever known, Robb and Jon and kind Jory included, and he could have told her that a sparrow's song was sweeter than a lark's and she would have believed him. Sansa knew – had known – her father, and her father did not – had not – told lies.

 

* * *

 

“What would you have me do? Who would you have me send, if not Theon?”

Sansa hesitated a moment before knocking on Robb's door, wondering who he was arguing with and then deciding it didn't matter, truly.

“Ser Rodrick says that Mother is departing for the south,” Sansa said, twisting her fingers into Lady's fur and hoping she didn't look as fearful as she felt. “Is it true, Robb?”

Mother – where did Robb want to send Theon, and why didn't Mother agree? - sighed, and Sansa leaned into her touch when she cupped her cheek.

“I am going to treat with Lord Renly Baratheon on your brother's behalf, sweetling,” Mother said quietly. “He is the rightful king, after all, and he has offered us the hand of friendship. We must accept it if we are to avenge your father's death.”

 

* * *

 

Sansa and Rickon both had protested Cat's leaving, and it broke her heart to abandon them like this, so soon after news of Ned's death, news that Bran and Arya were missing. 

Rickon had stopped talking to both Cat and Robb since he had been told that she was leaving, and had clung uncharacteristically close to Sansa. They had never been as close as any of the rest, but now they seemed never to be apart, following Lady and trailed by Shaggydog at every step. 

Sansa had barely spoken to them either. That, Cat suspected, had less to do with them leaving and more to do with Sansa's conviction that she was being left out because they thought she was incapable. 

It was not that at all, but rather that without her sight Sansa has no way of knowing whether to trust someone or not, not truly, and she was so vulnerable because of that.

“I can hear, Mother,” Sansa insisted, voice sharp and jaw set tight. “There are other ways to know people than by seeing them-”

“You are a brilliantly clever girl, Sansa, but it would not be fair to bring you into this world-”

“And yet you will use me to bind an alliance with Lord Renly if need be,” Sansa hissed. “You will sell me to whatever man will have a blind wife in order to gain vengeance for Father!”

“ _Sansa!”_

“It's true, isn't it?” she persisted, folding her arms and slumping back against Lady where they were curled around one another on the hearthrug. “I'm worthless except as a plaything for some horrible old man who's desperate enough for an heir that he'll take a risk with a _blind_ wife just because she's young and comes from a fertile line!”

“You know we would never _sell_ you, Sansa,” Robb said, coming into the room almost without their noticing. “I will have as little choice in my wife as you do in your husband, remember, and-”

Sansa's laugh was bitter and thick with tears, and then she pitched forward and sobbed into her hands, rocking back and forth, shoulders heaving.

“It will _never_ be the same for you,” she wept, “ _not ever,_ do you understand? You will not be under the control of someone who sees you only as- as a tool to make children! You will be _in_ control, Robb!”

Cat watched as Robb knelt beside Sansa, watched as Sansa slapped away the hand he reached out towards her, watched as Robb faced rejection of any sort from Sansa for the first time in his life.

“You _do not_ understand!” she cried. “You _cannot_ understand! It is all so _easy_ for you, Robb, Jon's the only one that ever understood and now he's _gone!”_

* * *

Renly Baratheon's camp at Highgarden – for he was allied with the Tyrells through his Queen, his Hand, and the Lord Commander of his Kingsguard, and they had as much at stake in this war as he did – was sumptious and glorious, and everything rumour had led Cat to expect.

Renly Baratheon himself was likewise everything she had been told to expect – young, barely more than a boy himself, and as handsome as Robert had been once upon a time. He looked as much like Robert, in fact, as Sansa looked like her.

He was surrounded at all times by Tyrells, despite having the whole of the Reach and the Stormlands and most of the Crownlands to call upon – he kept his niece, a girl a little younger than Arya, Stannis' daughter, close by almost always. She was a shy little thing, awkward and uncomfortable with scrutiny, but she showed surprising bravery when she sat at Renly's side and whispered in his ear.

Until he got a child on his pretty Tyrell wife, Lady Shireen was Renly's heir, and so she was near as carefully protected as he was – even the blatantly ambitious Lord Tyrell could not seem to find a way to turn that to his advantage, or to divert attention away from the girl. His daughter, a little older than Robb and Sansa, had shown no signs of producing the much-needed heir quite yet, despite Lord Renly – _King_ Renly – showing such devotion in the sept that it seemed impossible that the gods ignore him.

He was not showing similar devotion to treating with his guests, the allies he had so carefully sought out. Cat was anxious, as were Lord Umber and Ser Wylis and Lady Mormont, as were the riverlords who'd travelled with them from Lord Harroway's Town, but there was nothing she could do to speed the king along.

And then, quite suddenly, he was calling them in for council – with him, and with half of House Tyrell and what seemed like every lord of the Reach and Stormlands all at once.

“Your husband was the best friend my brother ever had, Lady Stark,” the King said. “I would have your soon as an ally, even if we are not yet friends.”

 

* * *

 

Rickon didn't know the first thing about ruling, but with Father dead, Robb leading the army to the south and Bran missing, he was the Stark in Winterfell.

His being four years old of course meant that he was incapable of ruling, which meant that it fell to Sansa and Maester Luwin and kind Ser Rodrick.

“Some people lean very heavily on their pen,” Maester Luwin said, setting her fingertips to the letter that had just arrived. “It is possible that you could learn to read by learning the shapes of the letters.”

“Mayhaps when we have more time, Maester,” she said tiredly. “For now, is this letter from my mother or my brother?”

“Your brother, my lady,” he said, and she felt guilty for letting her own tiredness show when every word of the maester's was half a yawn. “Lord Stark reports that the Lannister forces have been trapped in the Westerlands, and are cut off from the Crownlands.” 

“For now,” Sansa sighed. “The Lannisters know their own terrain better than anyone, and they doubtless know of secret passes into the Riverlands and the Reach that will get them around my brother and uncle's blockade.”

“Doubtless,” Maester Luwin agreed. “But at least your mother might have safe passage home from the Reach now, my lady.”

 

* * *

 

“What marriage is available to seal this alliance?” Cat asked suspiciously. “Unless you expect to betroth your niece to my son-”

“Ideally, yes,” the King said. “Your second son – my niece will take Storm's End upon my ascension to the throne, and your second son is near of an age with her, once he is found.”

“There is another possibility, if you are unwilling to promise your son without his consent,” someone said – Lord Tyrell's eldest son, the one with the crippled leg. “Your eldest daughter is unpromised, is she not?”

Cat's heart leaped to her throat, stealing away her breath. Sansa? They wanted _Sansa?_

“Who is there for Lady Sansa to wed?” Lady Mormont asked suspiciously. “She is but five-and-ten-”

“I am unwed, Lady Mormont,” the boy said. “Is the heir to Highgarden not a worthy match for your lord's sister?”

Cat couldn't quite believe that this was happening. The more she loked at him, the less a boy he seemed – his beard was as full as Ned's had been when they wed, and there was a maturity in his eyes that.... That...

“How old are you, my lord?”

His cheeks flushed dark and he looked down, at the table.

“Three-and-twenty, my lady. I suppose now you tell me I am too old for Lady Sansa?”

“I would wonder why a man of your age and position would put himself forward as a match for a girl he has never met.”

His smile was bitter, cynical, but the blush in his cheeks went darker still and betrayed just how much it wounded his pride to be in such a position as this.

“I am a cripple, your daughter blind,” he said, looking up again and meeting Cat's eyes firmly. “We are a matched pair, wouldn't you say?”

 

* * *

 

Rickon was getting heavier by the day, but Sansa still insisted on carrying him to bed every night. He'd taken to holding onto her hair, and it sometimes took ten minutes to untangle his hand.

It was during those ten minutes that Maester Luwin came and told Sansa that there had been word from Highgarden. Word of a match.

 

* * *

 

“Lady Stark,” he said through gritted teeth. “I apologise that I am in no state to greet you properly.”

He was a handsome enough boy – had it not been for that leg and his age, Cat would have had no issue in his marrying Sansa, because he seemed intelligent and kind, too. His leg _was_ an issue though, as was his age – Ned had refused so many offers for Sansa's hand on grounds of age, and she couldn't ignore everything he'd always wanted for her just for the sake of an alliance.

“I had intended on receiving you more formally,” he went on, eyes screwed tight shut in obvious pain, “but there was an accident this morning, and I find myself forced into convalescence for the evening.”

An accident indeed – Lady Tyrell had explained in blunt terms just what had happened to her son's leg, that it was rare for it to go into spasm as it had but that he had been putting himself under considerable pressure since Renly Baratheon had declared for the throne and his leg simply could not withstand the strain. 

“Again, my apologies,” he added, finally settling into one of the deep armchairs by the window and gesturing for her to take the other. “Were either of my brothers so discourteous as I have been my mother would have their heads – please, Lady Stark, sit. Would you like some tea? I can call for wine-”

“Tea will serve,” Cat said firmly, taking the offered seat and forcing a smile. “Is there anything that can be done to ease your discomfort?”

“Milk of the poppy or dreamwine,” he said with a shrug. “The one turns my stomach and the other puts me to sleep for days at a time, so I prefer to avoid both if I can – it is my own fault, truly. I am ususally more careful of my infirmity, and I... I usually use crutches unless we have guests, but we have had a great many guests for some time now.”

“You are proud,” Cat said. “Proud men can make dangerous husbands.”

His cheeks flushed deep pink above his beard, and he looked younger for a moment – Cat wondered if he might have looked even younger without that beard, without the silver sprinkled through his dark hair.

“I will one day have to govern the Reach in my father's place,” he said. “I look younger than either of my brothers if clean shaven, and my having spent so much time in Oldtown counts against me as well – even before my... My accident, I knew that I would have to work hard to earn the respect of my people.”

“And you feel that they disrespect you because of your infirmity?”

“I know they do, Lady Stark – well, mayhaps disrespect is the wrong word. They acknowledge that I _am_ a capable administrator, but that is of little use during wartimes. I understand that, I do, but it still chafes to know that the people who I will one day be charged with the protection of must turn to my brothers and uncles for protection.”

_Is this how Sansa feels when we pass her over?_

“I spoke ill of your daughter, Lady Stark,” he said quietly, carefully laying a slice of tart on the plate by her cup. “I did not mean it, and I cannot apologise enough – but I understand better than most other men could what it is to be looked down upon for something beyond your control, and I _would_ be a good husband to her – I could not be otherwise, with the example my parents have shown me.”

 

* * *

 

“Winterfell is yours, ser uncle,” Rickon said, and Sansa turned her head towards the sound of the nearest footsteps. “Welcome.”

“It is an honour to meet you, my lord,” came an older, grave voice. “And you, my lady – you look very much like your uncle.”

Sansa curtsied without taking her hand from Rickon's shoulder.

“Thank you, ser,” she said quietly. “I trust that you will take excellent care of my brother and of our home in my absence.”

Sansa had heard so many stories of the Blackfish, her mother's famed uncle, but she had not expected him to gently take her hand and tuck it through his elbow, for him to ask Rickon to lead them inside so he might speak with Sansa.

“Your mother left a letter with me for you,” he said softly. “She asked that I give it to you, but mayhaps she meant that I ought _read-_ ”

“Maester Luwin has taken care of my correspondence for as long as I remember, ser,” Sansa said, forcing herself to remain calm and not to be too disappointed – it was utterly typical, and for that reason she almost felt as though it were foolish of her to still be annoyed by it. “Thank you, your offer is kind, but I will take the letter, if it is all the same to you.”

He took no offence, which was a relief – she worried whenever she denied an offer of help – and led her in Rickon's wake, chatting easily as if there were nothing more remarkable about Sansa than her relation to him. It was a refreshing change, and Sansa understood entirely why her mother had always spoken so fondly of Brynden Tully.

Later, when he was speaking with Ser Rodrick and Rickon was too busy eating to make a nuisance of himself, Sansa nudged Lady away from table and murmured for Maester Luwin's rooms.

“Ah, Lady Sansa,” he called, “come in, come in – are you well? Are you here for your dram?”

“No, maester,” she said, pushing the door closed behind her and groping until she found a chair. “My lady mother sent a letter with Ser Brynden for me, and I would ask that you help me read it.”

She had been taking a dram to help her sleep in recent weeks – she had been troubled by nightmares, strange dreams that felt like something more because unlike her usual dreams, there were what she could only assume to be images in them – and hoped that she would not need it tonight, that those dreams would be eased by whatever was in Mother's letter.

 

* * *

 

“A double wedding!” Lady Tyrell said, and Cat heard the same worry that she herself felt at the prospect. “It must be a daunting prospect for you, Lady Stark – a son and a daughter on the same day.”

“You have lost a son and a daughter to wedlock within a short time, Lady Tyrell,” Cat pointed out, and wondered if she was imagining the sadness in Lady Tyrell's eyes. “Were my father in better health, he might be well positioned to give us advice on how to deal with such an occassion.”

“Mine as well,” Lady Tyrell agreed with a laugh. “My brother and I wed within a week of one another-”

“And I was born not eight moons later,” her son said with a grin. “My parents are notorious within the Reach, Lady Stark, because due to my having been born prematurely, our people suppose my parents were-”

“Yes, Willas, Lady Stark has five children of her own and doubtless understands quite well what the rumours entail,” Lady Tyrell said, but she was smiling – Willas had her smile, it was plain to see without his beard – even as she slapped at his shoulder. “I hope you will treat Lady Sansa with more respect and courtesy than you are showing her mother.”

 

* * *

 

Lady Roslin was pretty, or at least so everyone told Sansa, and Robb spoke of her without any great feeling either way – Sansa wondered if he thought her comely, or if he thought her an unfair price to pay for the use of a bridge.

Sansa didn't particularly like her because the few times she'd spoken to her goodsister, Roslin had spoken in a slow, loud voice such as you might use to converse with a simpleton, as though she thought Sansa's wits and hearing affected by her lack of eyesight, and because she had overheard more than one man say they hoped “our Roslin” didn't birth a ruin like Lord Stark's sister. Mother had always said that a man could be judged by his family, and Sansa didn't see why it should be any different for a woman.

She very much liked Uncle Edmure, though – he was sweet, and kind, and mayhaps a little silly in some ways, but he had treated her with more easy affection than anyone save her parents and siblings and Uncle Benjen ever had before, and so it was that Sansa often found herself in her uncle's company – Robb was away organising this skirmish and that ambush, and Mother was still on her way from Highgarden, but Uncle Edmure never seemed to mind it when Sansa tucked her hand through the crook of his elbow and whispered suggestions to him as he dealt with his bannermen and the people to whom he had given shelter from the Lannister troops in the Riverlands.

“There are a great many women and children here,” he explained in an undertone as he walked with Sansa along the top of the wall – she could not see the view Mother had so often described, of course, but Uncle Edmure had quickly discerned how soothing she found the sound of the rivers and so had taken to walking up here every evening, when their work was largely done. “The Mountain that Rides is said to lead Lord Tywin's men in our lands, you see, and he and his band of miscreants have a taste for defiling womenfolk and children.”

“You mean they-”

“Even the children, sweetling,” Edmure said, his voice grave. “So I opened the gates for my people, but most especially the women and the children – winter is coming, as your family is so fond of saying, and the men are needed to salvage what of the crops there are left to be saved and to defend their homesteads as best they can.”

“Is there nothing we can do, uncle?” she asked, sickened at the thought of anyone hurting a _child_ in such a way, glad that Rickon was safe far away at Winterfell with the Blackfish to guard him and Ser Rodrick returning north.

“Win, niece,” Edmure said. “We can win.”

 

* * *

 

“This has to be the Trident,” Bran said, and then he dunked his head under the rushing water. “Gods, it feels good to be a little cleaner.”

“You're so _finicky_ ,” Arya teased, but she tugged off her boots and stuck her feet into the water all the same. “Why must it be the Trident, then?”

“There's no other river that could be this size so far north,” Bran pointed out levelly, the clean water tracing clear little tracks through the dirt on his face. “If we follow it west, we ought come to Riverrun – even if the rumours about Robb being there are false, our grandfather is Lord Tully and ought to give us shelter.”

Arya was doubtful – they did not look at all like the trueborn children of Eddard Stark and Catelyn Tully, not with her hair shorn short and Bran's so filthy it was near as dark as her own, not dressed in the clothes of lowborn boys and carrying short swords.

She did not say as much, though, because Bran had had one of his strange dreams last week about Nymeria and Summer finding them, and she hadn't thought it possible but it had turned out to be true. Bran's dreams had been coming true more and more often lately, which was like something out of the stories that used make Sansa sigh wistfully.

 

* * *

 

Sansa was holding onto Edmure's arm and Lady's ruff when Cat rode through the gates with the Tyrells, her head turned towards Edmure – he was telling her what was happening, and Cat loved her brother's gentle nature more than ever in that moment – but turned towards the gate when Edmure nudged her gently with his hip.

Cat heard Willas Tyrell's breath catch, and when she glanced towards him his eyes were wide.

“Welcome to Riverrun,” Edmure called.

 

* * *

 

“I can't wed her, Mother! She's barely more than a child, she-”

“She's of an age with Margaery, and you had no compunctions beyond the obvious about seeing your sister wed, Willas.” 

Robb halted outside the door – it was rude to eavesdrop, he knew, but if the Tyrells intended on breaking the alliance for the sake of Lord Willas' preferences-

"Mother, she's probably never had a chance to love anyone - how can I take that from her? She's... I've talked with her mother, she's terrified of me.”

Sansa had given no indication that she was anything but prepared for this marriage, not to Robb, at least. What was Tyrell talking about?

“It's normal that she be anxious, sweetling,” Lady Tyrell murmured (Robb knew it was even ruder to strain to hear something than to simply overhear, but he needed to know if the Tyrells and, through them, King Renly intended on honouring the alliance). “I have spoken with Lady Stark – apparently Lady Sansa never left Winterfell until she came to Riverrun. Willas, she has every reason to be terrified of _everything,_ not just you – you're a stranger who she is expected to share a bed with in just a few day's time, darling boy. It is not an ideal position to be in, but if you are kind – and I know that you will be – then neither she nor you should have nothing to truly fear. You are not a frightening man by nature, after all.”

“ _Mother._ ”

"Do you think I loved your father when we wed?" Lady Tyrell asked, and Robb frowned – his mother had asked him the same question when he had complained about how shy Roslin was. _I never even thought to worry if Sansa might be worried,_ he realised. _She has always wanted to wed someone worthy of her, and I never thought..._

“At least Father had a chance to court you,” Tyrell pointed out. “You _knew_ him, Mother, and you were older than Lady Sansa is now. I just fear that... That she will come to hate me. Mayhaps if I were... If I _weren't-”_

“Your leg is not the sum of your worth,” Lady Tyrell said sharply, and Robb was reminded suddenly of something Jon had said long ago about Sansa. _Everyone thinks of her as the blind girl,_ he'd said, _as if there's nothing more to her than that she cannot see._

Robb turned on his heel and headed for Sansa's room. If she did not want this match, surely there was some other way the alliance could be sealed?

 

* * *

 

Sansa took a deep breath when Uncle Edmure looped her arm through his – Robb should have been the one to give her away, as head of the family, of her House, but he had to wait at the altar just as Lord Willas did and so Uncle Edmure had asked for the _honour._

Noboody had ever considered escorting Sansa anywhere an _honour_ before.

Mother had been the one to wrap her in her maiden cloak, the thick lining soft when Sansa dug her free hand back into it to try and stop her fingers from shaking. In just a few moments, Lord Willas would replace it with her marriage cloak. She wondered if it would feel heavier, for all the importance placed on it, and wished that Lady might sit at her feet at the altar. The direwolves had been forbidden from entering the sept for the ceremony, though, and had Sansa not insisted on needing Lady she might have been banned from the feast, too, because the Freys had kicked up such a stink at the thought of either wolf – although they made a point of calling them _dogs_ and speaking with a sneer in their voices - being present.

_Lord Willas did not sneer,_ Sansa realised quite suddenly. _He merely asked if there was anything he might do to set her at her ease._

* * *

Sansa was so beautiful that Cat's heart ached – she was smiling just a little while her new husband leaned close and spoke to her quietly, his mouth near her ear so they wouldn't be overheard by Robb, crammed close on one side, and Edmure, on the other. 

“They seem to be getting along well enough,” Cat said softly to Edmure, and she was surprised when he did not agree.

“Sansa is frightened,” he said. “Of what's to come – she's worried that the bedding will be... Distressing.”

“Surely she knows that you will not allow her to be mistreated?” she said, surprised. “It is hardly an enjoyable experience, but-”

“No, Cat, what comes after. She is _terrified._ ”

“I am not,” Sansa whispered, leaning in close – her hand caught tight in the front of Edmure's doublet so she did not lean too far – and frowning. “And you oughtn't speak of me behind my back, it's terribly rude.”

“Sweetling-”

“I am anxious,” Sansa said firmly, a little furrow appearing between her brows. “And I fear that my lord will not find me pleasing, but I am not _terrified,_ uncle.”

Sansa's other hand was hidden from Cat's view, but it'was quite clear from the way Edmure jumped that she had pinched him under the table. 

“I wonder, pretty girl,” Edmure said, casting about speculatively, “if you were to make some excuse about the privy and take your sweet wolf and have her lead you upstairs, and if I were to let your lord husband know of your true location so you might forgo the bedding, would that be to your tastes?”

 

* * *

 

She was talking to her wolf when he opened the door, a softly chiding murmur that made him smile.

“This would be so much easier if you had fingers to help me unlace myself,” she said, and the wolf tilted her head to the side and whined plaintively.

“My lady?” he called – should he call her by her name? She had a pretty name, but he had not yet used it. “Might I help?”

She was frozen, then, tight-shouldered and visibily tense, and he hated himself a little for startling her so.

“I- yes, please, my lord,” she said, and her voice was commendably steady. 

She flinched when he set his cane against the dressing table – had she sat before the mirror to take down her lovely hair? - but did not shy away when he set his hands to her gown.

“You will have to tell me what to do, my lady,” he admitted. “I would not wish to ruin your gown by my clumsiness.”

She guided him through it with murmurs – it was simple enough, as she had already removed the outer layers herself, and her stays were uncomplicated, just loosen the laces down the back and then a matter of slipping them over her head rather than untie them completely.

She caught his hands when he dropped them to the fastenings of her underskirts, and he pulled away quickly because she was clearly terrified.

“My lady-”

“Please,” she said quietly. “Please, just... A moment, my lord. Just a moment, please.”

“I will ready myself for bed, then,” he said, unsure how to handle her – she was of an age with Margaery, true, but she was nothing at all like his sister (part of him was grateful for that, of course, but he half wished that she at least acted a little more like Margaery so he might be better positioned to guage her reactions). “My lady...”

“A moment, my lord,” she said, and she sounded stretched thin so he left her be and retreated to the bed, stifling a moan of relief at finally having some support behind his knee. “Just a moment, I promise.”

He stripped down to his smallclothes – he had no clothes of any sort in this room, _her_ room, because it had been assumed that he would have no need of anything until morning.

He glanced across at her, still in her shift and clutching her underskirts in white-knuckled fists, her wolf sitting quietly by her feet and watching him with bright golden eyes. 

He looked away when she opened her underskirts and let them fall.

She came to sit on the edge of the bed to remove her stockings, rolling them down her long, long legs slowly and carefully and folding them neatly before she turned carefully to sit back against the pillows.

“You will have to guide me now, my lord,” she said quietly, her hands shaking as she felt about for the blankets. “I have no experience in this regard, you see, and... And...”

“I will not hurt you, my lady,” he said. “I- if you do not wish for me to touch you, I shan't.”

“You _must,”_ she whispered, and he realised that there were tears in her overlarge eyes, which had not been at all what he had been expecting when he rode into Riverrun. “They will look for a stain on the sheet in the morning-”

_I will not rape her,_ he decided. _It is not as if we must worry about me dying in battle, and she is so young. There is plenty of time yet._

“Not all maidens bleed, my lady,” he said, leaning across her to blow out the lamp on her nightstand. “Sleep well.”

He heard a tiny sigh of what he could only assume to be relief as he blew out his own lamp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be "Warfare," but as you can see that would have been a somewhat inappropriate chapter title. Next is a lot more broadly focused, I promise.


	3. Waiting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also not called Warfare. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and incorrectly planned chapter names.

Sansa was glad that she could not see, for once, because it meant she did not have to see the disappointment that was inevitably on her husband's face when it was announced that her goodsister was with child. 

She continued to share a bed with him, but Willas never touched her beyond guiding her hand to the crook of his elbow or helping her loosen her stays at night before they went to bed, and she wondered at that – she'd been told that men had _needs,_ although it had never been entirely clear to her what those needs were, and that she would be expected to satisfy them, but Willas never seemed to need anything beyond conversation and occasionally her permission to lean on her a little to keep his balance.

Lady Roslin - Lady  _Stark_ \- had apparently gotten with child on her wedding night, because Robb had departed Riverrun the following morning, and Mother had been so happy when telling Sansa that Roslin had not yet bled since the weddings...

"Your brother is away at war, my lady," Lord Willas said - he had taken to sitting behind a screen while she was bathing so they could talk without being interrupted. It made no difference to Sansa either way, but he had assured her that he would not even look at her body until she was ready for him to do so. 

She wondered if he thought her beautiful. Such a thing had never truly worried Sansa before, but she hoped her husband found her comely. Men were kinder to comely wives, everyone said that.

"You and I have all the time in the world. It... It makes sense that Lady Stark be with child before you."

"I am failing in my duty," Sansa said quietly, scrubbing her arms. "It is my duty to bear your heirs-"

"And it is my duty to see to your happiness," he said firmly. "I will not force myself on you, my lady. Unless you wish to share my bed in the marital sense, I will not ask that of you."

  
  


* * *

  
  


"What do you mean, the Lannisters have circled around?" the King said furiously. "How could they have  _circled around_  without our scouts noticing it?"

Robb leaned back against the tent pillar and folded his arms, watching Lord Tyrell wilt under the King's fury. He couldn't quite understand any of it - it seemed impossible that Lord Tywin had circled through the Riverlands as Lord Tyrell was insisting, but...

"There are easier passes to march from the Westerlands to the Reach than to the Riverlands," Robb said, not looking away from the huge map spread out over the table. "The ocean road is blockaded, true, as is the harbour at Lannisport, but they could march through the woods between the road and Cornfield and maintain cover without losing too much time."

"Are you implying that my men did not do their duty, Lord Stark?" Lord Tyrell boomed, rounding on Robb. "I-"

"He's right, my lord," Ser Garlan broke in. "Look, here - aside from the gold road, there's no passage through the hills that comes out to the south east, so unless they somehow got their entire army through the Riverlands without Ser Edmure's scouts noticing, which I deem impossible, they must have come via the Reach. It is the only thing that makes sense, my lord, you know it does.”

“I will send word to Lord Hightower,” the King said. “Ser Baelor's forces should be best positioned to intercept Tywin from the south, and we can come at him with some of our strength from the north – has there been any word from Ser Edmure about the movement of the troops led by the Kingslayer yet?”

“My brother wrote to say that the Kingslayer had been lured to the Whispering Wood, as planned,” Ser Garlan said, and Robb couldn't help but frown at the thought of Ser Garlan's beloved elder brother – he still disliked the other man for no reason other than he was now Sansa's husband and likely didn't understand how gentle one had to be with Sansa. “We have had no communications from Riverrun since that.”

“I can take control of the troops that are to take Lord Tywin from behind,” Robb offered, stepping forward, closer to the map. “If we depart at first light, we ought to catch him here, between Goldengrove and Silverhill, and cut him off from the gold road – it's our best chance of keeping him from King's Landing.”

“And what of the Kingslayer and the Mountain in the Riverlands, or the army of loyalists in the Crownlands?” Lord Tyrell snapped – Robb wondered if the fat man was truly as foolish and antagonistic as he appeared, because there seemed a sort of cunning in his honey-brown eyes – before leaning across the table towards Robb. “What would you do about them, in your infinite wisdom and experience, Lord Stark?”

 

* * *

 

“That has to be Riverrun,” Bran said firmly, crossing his arms and smiling down at her – he'd grown very suddenly, so much so that his breeches barely reached to his boots and his sleeves were too short, showing off his bony wrists.

Arya felt strangely guilty about that. Bran was her _little_ brother, after all, and she felt as though she ought to have been looking after him better.

“How can you be sure?” she asked tiredly, tugging back on her boots and standing up. He held out a hand to steady her, his smile fading – she'd done her best, but she couldn't hide how tired she was, how dizzy she was. She hadn't eaten much at all in days, less than him, because she'd been giving him most of her food, and it was starting to tell.

“The banners,” he said, pointing towards the distant castle, keeping an arm around her shoulders. “The one on the right is Tully, and on the left is the Stark banner – Mother will be there, we heard that she was with Robb! _Robb_ might even be there, and if he is, he will arrange for us to go home to Sansa and Rickon!”

Arya was less sure of that, but she didn't say anything – now that the keep was within sight, they could easily make it before dark, surely? She liked the idea of having a bed to sleep in, of a bath and a meal and _Mother._

Arya missed their mother more than she ever would have thought possible. She would not even complain about wearig a dress or having her hair combed.

“Come on, then,” she sighed, tightening her belt and marching forward. “I hear they open the gates at sunset, we'd best get there before then so we have a chance of getting in.

 

* * *

 

Cat smiled tiredly when Edmure came to collect Sansa for their walk – every evening without fail, he made time to bring her out to the wall. It warmed her heart to see them so close, to see Edmure so at his ease. He was made for love, her little brother, as was Sansa, and they were so well suited to one another's company that she couldn't help but smile.

Sansa's husband sent her off with a kiss to the back of her hand and a promise to speak with her at dinner, and Cat watched him watch Sansa, wondering if he was as entranced by her as he looked.

“There are more refugees?” Sansa asked as Edmure led her out the door, and they were hardly gone a moment before Sansa's husband excused himself.

Lady Tyrell smiled into her tea – Cat had never seen anyone to drink so much tea as the Tyrells – and shook her head.

“Do you know,” she said, “for all that everyone is of the opinion that my son is so much like my brother, I can never see anyone but my husband in him.”

Cat sometimes felt the same about Robb – he and Edmure could almost have been twins, but there were moments when he was Ned, right down to his core.

“A pity the same could not be said for the Lannister bastard,” Lady Tyrell went on, still smiling. “How inconsiderate of good Queen Cersei to leave us with such a conundrum – would that we could better predict her spawn's actions.”

“Mayhaps it is less her and more than Kingslayer that is to blame,” Cat said, shaking her head. “He has ever been... Unpredicatable.” She grinned, then, remembering suddenly. “He might have been my goodbrother, once upon a time.”

“How horrid,” Lady Tyrell said, wrinkling her nose to hide a smile. “That would have made you kin to _her,_ after all.”

“Do you know Her Grace well, Lady Tyrell?” Cat asked, leaning back in her chair. “You speak as one who does.”

“I visited the captial only last year, with my husband and my youngest children,” Lady Tyrell said. “While there, the Queen was as warm as ever she is, and was overheard to call my eldest son... Let me think, I must get it right... Oh yes, Loras overheard the Queen refer to Willas as _the crippled dog boy.”_

“Sansa overheard herself described as a _blind ruin,”_ Cat said, raising an eyebrow. 

“And her mother to three ruins all of her own. There's a song to be made in that, somewhere.”

 

* * *

 

Arya thumped Bran’s shoulder when his head snapped up.

“They might not recognise us,” she hissed. “I don’t remember ever meeting our uncle, and nobody will take Sansa’s word as truth, you know that, stupid.”

Bran huffed and hunkered back down, but his eyes darted up every time someone mentioned Lord Tully. According to the boys they'd spoken to already, the boys who had been within the walls of Riverrun, their uncle – who was _not_ Lord Tully, not as far as Arya knew, because she was certain that their grandfather was still alive – and “the blind lady,” who could only be Sansa, took walks every evening. 

“He looks like Robb,” Bran whispered. “And Sansa will know us, Arya, she’ll make everyone believe her. You know that _Mother_ will believe Sansa.”

Arya didn't tell Bran that no, Mother only seemed to always believe Sansa because Robb was almost always with her and usually saw what Sansa could not, but she – and most people – doubted Sansa most of the time-

“ _Sansa,”_ she sighed, unable to stop herself. What was Sansa doing at Riverrun, anyways? Wasn't she supposed to be at Winterfell with Rickon? “Bran, why is Sansa here in the first place?”

“We could ask her,” Bran said, pushing up off the ground and picking his way through the crowds towards Sansa and their uncle.

“Bran!” she whispered, “Bran, if they don't recognise us we could be expelled from Riverrun, _Bran-”_

But he was nearly to Sansa already, calling her name and waving to draw their uncle's attention, so Arya clambered to her feet and dodged after him, trying to catch hold of his greasy tunic and failing, almost falling in the process.

“Who are you?” their uncle asked, grabbing Bran by the scruff of his neck and scowling down at him. “Who are you to call on my niece in so familiar a manner?”

“I am her _brother,_ ser,” Bran insisted, struggling against their uncle's grip. “Sansa, Sansa, it's me, it's Bran-”

“Bran, is that you?” Sansa asked, holding out her hand to Bran – she had grown even taller, somehow, which irked Arya more than she would ever admit. ”Edmure, is it Bran? Is it my brother?”

“I don't-”

“It's Bran,” Arya said, rolling her eyes and putting her hand into Sansa's. “And it's me as well, Sansa, it's Arya and Bran.”

Sansa pulled her close with a sob, holding out her other arm to Bran and crushing them against her chest, kissing them over and over again and telling their uncle to send to Mother.

_Mother._

* * *

“Lady Catelyn! Lady Catelyn! Ser Edmure says to come quickly, he and Lady Sansa say you're to come right away!”

Cat allowed herself to be led downstairs, Lady Tyrell on her heels – what could possibly be so urgent that Edmure and Sansa would disrupt their precious evening walk to send for her, she wondered? Was Sansa hurt? Had there been a rider from Robb?

Sansa didn't seem to be hurt – but she had attached herself to two urchins, seemingly picked at random out of the crowds Edmure had allowed within the walls, and was sitting on the floor just inside the doors, holding them close.

Edmure looked vaguely pleased, in a sort of confused manner, but he crouched down beside Sansa and whispered to her when he saw Cat coming, smoothing her hair back and pressing a kiss to her temple before straightening up and coming to meet Cat.

“Sansa insists that you'll want to see them,” he said, and there was a wickedness in his grin that Cat hadn't seen since he was a boy playing tricks on Lysa. 

“Mother? Mother, are you there?” Sansa called, “Mother, look who it is!”

The two children turned to face her, and Cat couldn't help but cry out in shock, in delight, and Bran and Arya helped Sansa to her feet before running into Cat's arms.

“I am riding out on the morrow,” Cat heard Edmure say to Sansa, “but I suspect that between your blushing husband and these two hellions, you will not much miss my company.”

 

* * *

 

Robb's head was ringing, but he knew that he was lucky to still be alive after taking a blow from the flat of the Mountain's sword.

The _Mountain!_ The bastard was supposed to be in the Riverlands, but somehow he was here, with Lord Tywin, and Robb knew that it was best that he pretend to be unconcious – if he fought, who knew what Clegane would do?

“So this is the famed Young Wolf,” a disdainful voice rolled somewhere over Robb's head, rich and deep and commanding even in disgust. “He fell easier than expected.”

Robb couldn't help but groan when he was thrown to the ground, his head and his ribs stinging with the impact.

“Lord Stark,” Tywin Lannister said. “Would you prefer to sit?”

 

* * *

 

Smalljon Umber arrived in the middle of the feast to celebrate Edmure's victory in the Whispering Wood, while Sansa was giggling at something her husband was saying and Lady Tyrell was patting Cat's hand in sympathy at how wild Arya was being.

“My Margaery was the same until her grandmother took a hand in her teaching,” Lady Tyrell confided, and while Cat couldn't quite believe it of Renly Baratheon's queen, it was heartening all the same. “She will come around, in time.”

Arya looked more herself with her hair washed and cut evenly, at least, and Bran looked painfully like Edmure now that he'd been scrubbed clean and outfitted in clothes that fit him. They were “dancing,” although it was more holding one anothers hands and spinning around, near trampling everyone else on the floor.

Robb's little wife, Roslin, was sitting in the chair to Edmure's right, her hands resting on the sudden swell of her belly – she was near five moons along, and was having an enviously easy time of it. 

“Lady Stark is lucky to avoid the sickness,” Lady Tyrell said quietly. “I remember when I carried my Willas, I could hardly move without feeling nauseous.”

“I was the same with Arya and Rickon,” Cat said, smiling at the memory. “They are always worth it, though, once you hold them in your arms the first time.”

Smalljon Umber's arm was in a sling and his head bandaged when he marched right across the floor to greet Cat – not Lady Roslin, which was discourteous of him – and tell her the terrible, awful news.

“Lord Stark has been captured, my lady,” he said gravely. “Lord Tywin holds him now, and is making for the capital. His Grace the King hopes to intercept them, but it seems unlikely that he will be able to do so.”

 

* * *

 

Willas' hand felt so big on Sansa's back when he held her that night, rocking her gently as she tried not to panic about Robb.

“We hold the Kingslayer,” he reminded her softly, “Lord Tywin will trade your brother for his son, sweetling, all will be well.”

Sansa doubted it, though – everyone seemed to be forgetting that Joffrey, of whom Arya and Bran told terrible tales, was the one with the true power. She couldn't see how everything would go to plan, especially given how Joffrey had wronged Father-

“Ssh, sweetling, ssh,” Willas murmured, and she let him tuck her head under his chin and stroke her hair. She felt all on edge, her jaw clenched and her hands fisted in Willas' nightshirt and her eyes screwed shut to hold back tears. “Please don't be upset, Sansa, there is still hope. There is always hope.”

He had never called her by her name before, and that startled her so much that her nerves were soothed, if only a little.

 

* * *

 

“If they kill Robb, you might be Lord of Winterfell,” Arya whispered to Bran. They were sitting together in a tree in the godswood, avoiding their lessons – how Mother expected them to concentrate on lessons now, Arya would never know – and avoiding the Freys.

Arya hated them all, a little, even the one Robb had married, because they all seemed eager for Robb to die so they could seize Winterfell through the baby Robb's wife was carrying

“Robb's child is his heir,” Bran pointed out, biting into an apple that he'd pulled from his pocket. “Not me.”

“We are at war, though,” Arya pointed out. “If they kill Robb before the babe is born, or if it's a girl, _our_ people might rally to you, mightn't they?”

“Arya-”

“Mother is confident that they'll trade Robb for the Kingslayer, and Sansa... You know how she and Robb are, Bran, Sansa won't accept that Robb is dead unless she can hold his body in her arms.”

“ _Arya-”_

“Arya,” Edmure called, standing at the foot of the tree with his arms folded. “Enough, child – now come in, your sister is looking for you.”

They were still in the godswood, right on the fringes, when Edmure took her and Bran by the shoulder and said, voice harder than they'd ever heard from him, “I would be grateful if you did not speak of your brother's impending doom in front of Sansa or your mother.”

 

* * *

 

King's Landing smelled like a cesspit.

Robb stared blankly at his boots as the cart rumbled up through the streets, his stomach churning – Father had died in this place, as had Robb's uncle and grandfather. Arya and Bran had disappeared from here, and as they neared the Red Keep, Robb feared that he would die here, too.

They came to a halt in a shadow, and Robb was glad of that – his face and arms were sunburnt, and the shade was a small but welcome mercy.

He longed, suddenly and sharply, for the gentle summer snows of home, and sighed as he clambered down from the cart, resigned to not seeing them again.

The bastard was sitting on the Iron Throne – gods, it was even uglier than Father had told them, those rare times he could be convinced to share stories – and the bitch that birthed him was standing to his left, Lord Tywin to his right, the Imp at the foot of the steps.

“You are worth more than we thought, Lord Stark,” the bastard said, smirking and mincing down from his precarious seat. “It would seem that your uncle has taken mine prisoner.”

“Strange,” Robb said, uncaring of whatever punishment would come on account of his words, “Lord Tyrion is standing before me, and you have no other uncles.”

He closed his eyes before the Hound's fist hit his jaw, and was only thankful that he was not so strong as his older brother.

The bastard waited until Robb had managed to push to his knees before speaking.

“You have supported my uncle in his treason,” he said, leaning forward, narrowing his eyes. “And that is a treason all of its own, Lord Stark. Do you know the punishment for treason?”

Robb bowed his head, closed his eyes. _I'm sorry, Father,_ he thought miserably, letting his shoulders sag, _I have failed them all._

 

* * *

 

Sansa had been sick for four days, clutching her head and curling in on herself, refusing to leave her bed, weeping into her pillow and hardly eating or drinking a thing.

Mother was worried for her, convinced that she was gravely ill, and Sansa's husband seemed to have to strain very hard for any shred of control, always seemed right on the edge of panic, unhappy that his duties kept him from tending her. Arya had taken to sitting with her – it got her away from that awful septa, and Bran was always busy in the yard, sparring with the squires and other boys – and dabbing a cool cloth over her brow and her neck, trying to get her to eat something, or to at least _speak._

The raven came on the fifth day, and Sansa's screams echoed right through Riverrun, louder even than Mother's.

 

* * *

 

The Kingslayer sauntered to the block, watching proceedings with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

“My condolences, Lady Catelyn,” he called. “I hear my nephew has proved himself the bane of your House once more.”

Cat squeezed Edmure's arm tighter, setting her jaw and refusing to rise to the Kingslayer's bait.

_We could have traded you for my son, had yours not killed him,_ she thought bitterly. 

There were Freys standing nearby, and Cat thought that mayhaps one was cousin to the Kingslayer by his aunt, but he made no move to help Tywin Lannister's son.

Jaime Lannister seemed stunned when Jason Mallister kicked his legs out from under him and pushed him down to the block, as though he had not truly expected them to execute him.

_What is there for us to trade for you?_ Cat wanted to ask, to scream and rage and cry, but what was the point? There was none, not now that Robb was dead, and only Edmure's arm under her hand and Alerie's fingers on her wrist stopped her, that and Bran, standing as tall as he could before her, looking every inch a Stark – _Lord_ Stark – despite his Tully face.

 

* * *

 

Sansa curled closer to Willas' chest, wishing she could stop weeping.

“Do you think you'd like to go down for dinner this evening, sweetling?” he asked quietly, shifting slightly – adjusting his bad leg, she guessed – and smoothing a hand down her hair. “Would you like that, do you think?”

She shook her head, clutching tight to his tunic.

“Please stay with me,” she whispered, and he only sighed quietly and tightened his hold on her. He'd hardly left her since word had come of Robb's death, had held her even as she screamed and screamed and Lady had howled.

She wondered at that, a little – he was her husband, yes, and she had been growing... Fond seemed the wrong word, mayhaps _warm_ towards him recently, but she had not thought that he felt anything much toward her other than a sort of polite respect.

“I will always stay with you, Sansa,” he murmured, and she thought she felt his lips brush her hair before he rolled slightly and pulled her onto his chest. “Always, my lady.”

 

* * *

 

“Your husband is in love with you,” Arya whispered, carefully pulling a brush through the length of Sansa's hair – she had finally gotten out of bed and bathed, and she had been surprised when Arya shooed away both Willas and her maid and started on her hair herself. “Bran and I watched him at dinner, he looks at you as if you're a princess. Or the Maiden.”

“Don't be silly,” Sansa said softly. “Why should Willas be in love with me, Arya?”

“Why shouldn't he?” Arya challenged. “If he's in love with you, he might be convinced to foster Robb's child when it's born, to keep the Freys from trying to put it in Winterfell.”

“Bran is Lord of Winterfell now,” Sansa said calmly. “The Freys cannot just take it from him, Arya. That is not how such things work.”

“There are a great many Freys, and we will have to cross at the Twins on our way home-”

“I will not be with you,” Sansa reminded her. “When the war is over, I will go to Highgarden-”

“With the man who is in love with you,” Arya concluded. “Don't the Freys worry you at least a little, Sansa? There are so many of them, and they seem so _sneaky.”_

“Bran is Lord of Winterfell,” Sansa said. “Uncle Edmure will soon be Lord Paramount of the Trident – he confided in me that our lord grandfather is not long for the world. My goodfather is Lord of Highgarden, and we are allied to the rightful king, who will soon sit the Iron Throne. The Freys are small threat against such an alliance.”

“They could turn traitor,” Arya persisted, pausing to work a particularly stubborn tangle from Sansa's hair. “I do not like them, Sansa, not at all."

 

* * *

 

“What is happening?” Cat heard Sansa whisper, but she could not look away from Edmure – he had been drinking, she realised when the second arrow fell short of their father's boat. “Willas-”

“I don't fully know, darling,” Sansa's husband murmured back, voice barely loud enough for Cat to catch. “Hush now, I promised to tell you all when it was done.”

Brynden stepped forward, and Cat held Edmure's elbow as the tears in his eyes spilled over – there were too many Freys, vermin that they were, for him to show any more weakness, and he seemed to know that because he sniffed and straightened his shoulders.

The Freys had been pressing for Arya to choose a husband – a boy named Elmar was supposedly the favourite – and for Cat, as Bran's regent, to choose a wife for him from among their endless ranks.

Wylis Manderly had offered an alternative – his younger daughter, a year younger than Sansa, several years Bran's senior. She was supposedly a wilful girl, by her uncle's report, which would do Bran no harm, and they were entirely willing to wait for Bran to come of age before any wedding would take place.

If it would save Bran from the Freys...

But that still left Arya, she thought miserably as Brynden's arrow hit it's mark. Arya, who would hate every moment of life at the Twins. What was she to do about her?

Sansa had been worrying as well, Cat knew – Arya was unaware, somehow, that she had been bartered for passage at the Crossing, and the thought of telling her broke Cat's heart. 

 

* * *

 

“Uncle Edmure,” Sansa whispered, hoping Lady truly had led her to the right bedchamber. “Uncle Edmure, where are you?”

“Sansa? What are you doing here?”

“Where _are_ you?” she asked, twisting her hand anxiously into Lady's ruff. “Uncle Edmure-”

“I'm here, sweetling, I'm here,” he said, tipping up her chin. “Are you well? Where is Willas, Sansa, did he leave you to wander the halls alone?”

“I am not alone,” she said, shaking her head. “Lady is with me.”

“What do you need, Sansa?” he asked, taking her hands and guiding her deeper into the room. “Is there something the matter?”

“It is Arya,” she said. “And the Freys – Mother told them tonight that Bran is to marry Lady Wylla Manderly, and they are insisting that Arya wed one of them as soon as she has her bleeding, please, Edmure, there must be _something_ you might do-”

“Arya's betrothal was part of the same pact as Robb's,” Edmure said, leading Sansa to sit on the edge of the bed. “I do not know what I might do, sweetling – short of offering myself in her place, there is naught I _can_ do.”

 

* * *

 

“What news from the Riverlands?” Renly asked without looking up, and Garlan shook his head. Willas' letters were always perfectly sensible, for all that he'd recently taken to mentioning his little wife in passing. 

“They executed the Kingslayer, as we knew,” Garlan said, not wanting to hand over the letter in case someone else picked up on the hints that Willas was entirely smitten with Lady Sansa – Garlan knew that his brother would be mortified if such a thing were common knowledge – but needing to share Willas' new information. “Lord Hoster Tully has died, and Ser Edmure has taken his place – my brother speaks highly of the new Lord Tully.”

“Tell my favourite goodbrother that he ought tell me of the new Lord Tully to my face,” Renly said, and Garlan bit down on a smile at the look of affront on Loras' face. “We will need him and his wonderful mind here to help coordinate our fiercest battle, will we not?”

“Then mayhaps Lord Tully ought come with him, Your Grace, and you might take the measure of him yourself,” Garlan suggested. “I will write to my brother immediately, sire – if you will excuse me?”

The prospect of seeing Willas was one that pleased Garlan immensely, if only because of the perverse delight Willas took in bothering Loras. 

It would also be nice, for once, to be the one in a position to tease Willas about a woman, rather than the opposite. 

 

* * *

 

Cat watched on in astonishment as Edmure spoke.

“Surely, Ser Stevron, the Lord Paramount of the Trident is a finer prize for your father than the Lord of Winterfell's youngest sister.”

She could see the Freys mulling this over – she had overheard talk among them that Arya was no great prize, more boy than girl as she currently looked with her too-skinny frame and her short hair, that “even the blind bitch would've been better than the brat,” and she did not know how she was ever to repay Edmure for this.

“I met a number of your sisters and nieces when they were here for my nephew's wedding,” Edmure said. “One that I danced with, Alyx – send for her, ser. She seemed a clever girl.”

“Mayhaps too clever, my lord,” Stevron Frey said archly. “Her mother is a Braavosi.”

“Send for Lady Alyx, ser,” Edmure said firmly. “And if I wed her, my niece is free to wed as my sister sees fit?”

Ser Stevron nodded, and Cat couldn't help but wonder if it was a relief to be rid of a half-Braavosi girl _and_ a grand prize to have a claim on the Lord of Riverrun.

She caught up to Edmure after, and he smiled before she could say a word.

“How could I refuse the girls this?” he said quietly. “I am in need of a wife and heirs regardless, and Arya is still a child, Cat – they would have ruined her.”

 

* * *

 

“My lady? Might I speak with you alone?”

Sansa held out a hand, motioned for Willas to sit near her, and startled when Arya leaned in and kissed her cheek. Arya had been very affectionate since word had spread of Uncle Edmure's betrothal and impending marriage.

“Send for me when you're finished,” Arya said, and then she was gone and the woodsy, almost-floral smell that followed Willas everywhere drifted down around her as he took the seat beside her. 

The door clicked shut, and Willas took her hands.

“I have had a letter from my brother, my lady,” he said quietly. “Speaking in the King's name.”

“My lord?”

“I- my father has taken ill, from a wound turned septic. He is returning to Highgarden to recuperate, and the King has asked that I travel south and... And fill in for Father until he is well again.”

She traced her hand up his arm until she found his face, cradling his jaw in her hand in comfort.

“Your uncle is to accompany me, with a detachment of his men – Renly, that is, the King has asked that we both leave the day after your uncle's wedding.”

“But- but that means you will be gone the day after tomorrow!”

She was surprised by how much she did not want him to leave – she wanted him here, safe, with her, and wondered how she was to sleep without his warmth next to her in their bed.

“I do not want you to go,” she whispered, and he huffed in what could only be surprise.

“Sansa,” he said softly, “tell me what you _do_ want.”

She leaned into his hand when he reached up to brush back her hair, wishing she could articulate just why she wanted him to stay.

“I want you here,” she said, feeling strangely breathless. “I want you with me.”

That sounded about right, she thought, and she felt his throat move under her wrist.

“Sansa,” he said, sounding almost shy, “might I kiss you?”

He had not kissed her since their wedding day, so many moons ago, a soft press of his mouth to hers in the sept before all their guests, and she knew immediately that this would not be like that. 

His hands shook slightly, so slightly, against her face, but his mouth was sure and warm, his lips soft, and his hair was like satin thread – soft but not as smooth as silk, he spent too much time outside for that. She could feel the stubble starting on his jaw, the pulse hammering in the side of his neck, the heat of his flushed skin as he pressed his thumb to her chin and eased her mouth open just a little, just enough.

No, this was nothing like the kiss they had shared in the sept, all that time ago. This was nothing like Sansa had ever known before.

 

* * *

 

Cat stood with Bran in the sept and watched Edmure cloak pretty Alyx Frey, with her curly hair and striking eyes.

She very determinedly did not think of the last two weddings she had attended in this sept, although the way Sansa held her husband's arm and curled close to his side, the way they stood with their heads together and murmured to one another the whole time, made that very difficult.

At least the cloak in Edmure's hands was red-and-blue, not white, at least it was a leaping trout and not a racing direwolf.

They were a handome couple, Edmure and his bride, and they seemed to get along well enough – Alyx had a commanding personality, charming and witty, and Edmure looked over her head (she was quite small) to Cat with a question in his smile, a question which disappeared when she nodded, knowing that he wanted her approval in some small way.

 

* * *

 

“I wish you did not have to leave in the morning,” Sansa sighed against his mouth, and Willas wondered if this was how most people felt all of the time – it was unbearable, _wanting_ so much, wanting _her_ so much, and he'd never known anything like it before. He'd had a handful of lovers – not even a handful, a grand total of three, if Oberyn and Ellaria were counted independently – but none of them had ever left him like this.

“I wish the same,” he agreed, winding his arm around her waist and pulling her closer. She was near as tall as him, which long legs pressed together with his, long arms wound around his shoulders. “Gods, Sansa, you're so _beautiful.”_

Her skin was hot through her nightgown, and hotter under his mouth, on her neck, when she tipped her head back for him, and he felt drunk on her.

“I have not had many lovers,” he confided, nuzzling into the soft curls behind her ear, ghosting a hand up her side from her hip, stopping just short of her pert breast. “I find it... Difficult to become close to a person in this way, and I have no interest in lying with someone I am not close to.”

She hummed, back arching slightly off the mattress as he trailed his fingertips across her taut stomach, up her breastbone, across her collarbone and down her arm to twine his fingers together with hers.

“This is near as new to me as it is to you,” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her once more. Her mouth was hot, so hot, and sweet, too, and he knew that he would never tire of kissing her. “We shall have to spend a great amount of time exploring the possibilities once the war is won, my darling.”

“Will we?” she sighed, turning her head for another kiss, which he gave more than willingly.

“Mmm,” he promised, “we shall have Highgarden all to ourselves, I suspect, which will give us ample room to play.” 

 

 

* * *

 

Sansa winced as Roslin screamed again, more because of the pain of her goodsister's grip on her hand than because of the sound, but she forced herself to remain. This babe was Robb's, too, after all, all that was left of her twin, and she _would_ love it, regardless of what Arya feared the Freys might do.

“Push now, my lady!” the maester called, and Roslin screamed some more and squeezed Sansa's hand so tight she thought her fingers might break. She could hear Alyx, Edmure's wife, on Roslin's other side, murmuring encouragements, but she did not know what to say. 

Mother had told Sansa that childbirth was painful, but not so bad as some women said, and Sansa doubted her a little now – it sounded really very painful, and she worried for the first time about whether or not her hips were suitable. Didn't women worry about such things?

Roslin sobbed and screamed and shrieked for a little while more – only a few short minutes more, in fact – and then the sound of something else, a quavering wail that made Sansa's breath catch. She'd heard it once before, that she remembered well, when Rickon was born, and she almost held out her hands for the babe before remembering that that would be rude.

“A girl, my lady,” the maester said, and Sansa could not help but feel relieved – a girl meant less chance of a challenge to Bran, and that was the main thing. “A healthy daughter.”

Mother was sent for, and Bran and Arya, as soon as Roslin and the babe had been cleaned up.

Sansa hated Roslin for offering to let every single person in the room hold the child except for her.

 

* * *

 

It was raining on the morning the battle was due to commence, and Willas wondered what sort of omen that was.

“A slippery one,” Garlan said, clapping him on the shoulder with a grin. “Just think, big brother, a slip and a slide and Renly'll land his arse on that ugly throne he wants so badly, and then we can all go home.”

“I can go home, you mean,” Willas teased. “You're to be commander of the City Watch, Father is Hand, Margaery is Queen and Loras Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. Mother and Granny and Leo are hardly likely to let you all run around like headless chickens, are they?”

“Just you, then,” Garlan agreed. “Won't you be lonely, Willas? The Gross can look after Highgarden, you know.”

“I will have to rule the Reach for myself someday, Gargoyle,” Willas pointed out. “And besides, I shan't be lonely – I will have my wife to keep me company.”

 

* * *

 

“There are letters from King's Landing, my ladies,” the maester announced. “Several of them.”

Sansa did not set down her harp until he touched her shoulder.

“There is one for you, my lady,” he said gently. “Will you need help to read it?”

Sansa ran her fingers over the seal, smiling just a little when she felt the now-familiar rose pressed into the wax.

“No thank you, maester,” she said. “I can manage well enough myself.”

She could _hear_ their surprise, Roslin's gasp an absurd exaggeration that made Sansa purse her lips and caused little Lyanna, who had been dozing in her mother's arms, to stir.

The letters were pressed deep into the thick parchment, and she pushed aside the sharp pang of longing that settled in her belly at Willas' scent on the parchment and set to work puzzling out his words, tracing every letter and sorting it into place in her mind. And then, at last...

“Oh,” she said, “oh, he's safe.” Her shoulders felt lighter, suddenly, and she smiled. “And he wants to bring me home.”


End file.
